DNA testing sheds new light on Original Night Stalker case

Investigators confirm through DNA that the man who killed a Goleta couple in 1981 is the same one they believe responsible for a string of crimes that started with dozens of rapes in Northern California and ended with multiple slayings in Santa Barbara, Ventura and Orange counties.

Whether the serial killer known as the Original Night Stalker is still alive, nobody knows.

But 30 years after a couple died while housesitting in Goleta, investigators have confirmed through DNA testing what they long suspected: The man who killed them is the same one they believe responsible for a decades-long crime spree that started with dozens of rapes in Northern California and ended with as many as 10 slayings in Santa Barbara, Ventura and Orange counties.

The last known crime associated with the Original Night Stalker took place in 1986, but his notoriety lives on. In 2004, California voters passed an initiative, bankrolled by the brother of one of his victims, that mandates collection of DNA samples from people convicted — or even arrested — in felony cases.

Authorities are no closer to pinpointing an identity for the killer, who was usually masked and sometimes accompanied by his German shepherd. Still, officials in Santa Barbara said Tuesday they've answered a crucial question in the 1981 slayings of Cheri Domingo, 35, and Gregory Sanchez, 27.

"We now have concrete evidence that links their deaths to the horrific individual that terrorized both Northern and Southern California," said Drew Sugars, a spokesman for the Santa Barbara County Sheriff's Department.

About six months ago, the state crime lab in Santa Barbara offered sheriff's investigators a chance to scrutinize old evidence with cutting-edge DNA technology.

Using a recently developed technique, scientists could wring usable DNA out of samples that had been seen as too old and degraded to be of much value, said Colleen Spurgeon, the lab's assistant director.

In the Goleta case, Sanchez was shot and bludgeoned. Domingo died of massive head injuries. Some of the grisly details matched those at other crime scenes associated with the Original Night Stalker: Sanchez and Domingo lived in an upscale neighborhood and were killed in bed. Domingo's hands had been tied — as had the hands of victims at other scenes.

Eighteen months before, another couple had been killed at home in Goleta. Dr. Robert Offerman, an osteopathic surgeon, and Alexandria Manning, a clinical psychologist, also had their hands bound with twine. Authorities believe their assailant was the Original Night Stalker.

The sheriff's office dug about 50 pieces of evidence out of storage. Detectives studied blankets, bedspreads, hair, and semen stains. Scientists at Spurgeon's Santa Barbara crime lab sent samples to another federal lab in Richmond, Calif., for further testing.

In the last month, a search of DNA databases found matches between the Goleta case and three Northern California rapes. Before he became known as the Original Night Stalker — so named to distinguish him from Richard Ramirez, the serial killer known as the Night Stalker who terrorized the Los Angeles area in the mid-1980s — the killer was called the East Area Rapist and was tied to no fewer than 52 sexual assaults in Sacramento County and the Bay Area.

Then there were the 1980 murders.

In Ventura, Lyman Smith, an attorney days away from being appointed a judge, and his wife, Charlene, a court clerk, were bludgeoned to death with a fireplace log in their home.

Later that year, Keith Harrington, a medical student at UC Irvine, and his wife, Patrice, a pediatric nurse, were beaten to death with a blunt instrument in their Laguna Niguel home.